Moffatt Bible

The Moffatt Bible, the work of the Scottish biblical scholar James Moffatt, is a highly influential modern-speech translation that broke strongly with the diction of the King James Version. Produced in the earlier twentieth century, it belongs to the wave of single-translator English versions that sought to render scripture in the idiom of contemporary readers rather than in inherited ecclesiastical English. It covers the complete Bible, rendered from the Hebrew and Greek and based on critical Hebrew and Greek texts, and is classed as a fresh translation following an idiomatic, literary-critical philosophy. Among its distinctive features, Moffatt sometimes rearranged verses or passages in accordance with literary-critical judgments, a practice that drew comment from both admirers and critics. Widely read by preachers and students, the version helped establish the expectations of readability and scholarly independence that shaped later modern-language English Bibles.